Women’s World Cup hosts urge FIFA to not signal Saudi sponsor

Women’s World Cup co-hosts Australia and New Zealand urged FIFA to not signal a sponsor take care of the tourism authority of Saudi Arabia the place “rights of women remain severely restricted.”

Leaders of the 2 nationwide soccer federations warned in a letter to FIFA, together with president Gianni Infantino, that unilaterally sealing the “Visit Saudi” sponsorship might “severely tarnish the reputation” of the 32-nation match that begins in July.

That is regardless of the tourism model being endorsed by males’s World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi, who was introduced final yr as a paid pitchman.

Such a confrontation between a World Cup host and FIFA is unprecedented in latest historical past, and is more likely to shine extra consideration on so-called “sportswashing” investments by Saudi Arabia.

“We write to express our serious disappointment and concern at the news of the apparent appointment of Visit Saudi as a sponsor,” Chris Nikou of Australia and New Zealand’s Joanna Wood wrote Wednesday within the letter to FIFA seen by The Associated Press.

“We can not specific strongly sufficient the potential repercussions and fallout that might results of this determination.

“Australia and New Zealand, both as sovereign nations and as football associations, have for decades placed the utmost importance on gender equality, and have sought to promote these ideals around the world,” the letter stated, reminding FIFA their governments have invested lots of of hundreds of thousands within the soccer occasion.

Tournament organizers and authorities officers in each nations had been stated to not have been consulted, they claimed, nor provided the possibility to make a counter proposal for a home tourism marketing campaign.

Wood is among the many few girls to steer one in all FIFA’s 211 member federations and likewise an elected member of FIFA’s ruling council which Infantino chairs.

FIFA didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Saudi Arabia has made progress in girls’s soccer up to now three years making a nationwide crew and a home league, plus getting ready a bid to host the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup.

In Saudi society, nonetheless, girls’s freedoms are restricted by strict male guardianship legal guidelines.

“While we acknowledge some important and positive gender equality reforms have commenced in Saudi Arabia, it remains undeniable under any reasonable standard that the rights of women remain severely restricted,” the Women’s World Cup hosts wrote to FIFA.

Tony Gustavsson, head coach of Australia’s girls’s nationwide crew, didn’t instantly touch upon the problem of the sponsorship Thursday whereas unveiling a squad for the Feb. 16-22 Cup of Nations match, however stated “I know what these women stand for and what the team stands for.”

“I’ve had the privilege to meet the Matildas alumni and everyone knows the core values of this team,” he stated. Football Australia “is seeking more information and the team knows what they stand for.” The “Visit Saudi” marketing campaign was amongst greater than 30 sponsors on the males’s World Cup in Qatar final yr.

FIFA didn’t formally announce that deal which turned obvious by means of pitchside commercials when the video games began in November.
The Women’s World Cup is to be performed July 20-Aug. 20. The United States is defending its title within the first version of the marquee match expanded to 32 groups.

It can even be the primary check of FIFA’s coverage to separate broadcasting and sponsor offers for the Women’s World Cup from the lads’s occasion. That was supposed to offer independence to girls’s soccer and show it had its personal business worth.

Infantino beforehand defended the ladies’s match when he used the platform of the finals match attract Auckland in October to criticize broadcasters for making gives for rights that FIFA deemed unacceptably low.